


Room to Flower

by ravenbringslight



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Awkwardness, Falling In Love, Fantastic Racism, First Time, Fluff, Hair Brushing, Jötunn Loki, Loki and Thor Are Not Related, M/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-12 17:57:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10496466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenbringslight/pseuds/ravenbringslight
Summary: Thor and Loki have an arranged marriage. It's incredibly awkward, until it isn't.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this tumblr prompt](http://curds-and-wheyface.tumblr.com/post/157255079966/thorki-want).
> 
> Please visit me at [raven-brings-light.tumblr.com](https://raven-brings-light.tumblr.com).

Loki met his husband only twice before their wedding.

The first time they met was at the formal reception where the court at Asgard welcomed the court of Jotunheim as freshly minted friends and allies. The old war was newly ended and both sides still eyed each other with distaste and distrust. Loki, raised on tales of Aesir barbary and treachery, scarcely dared to look upon their faces. He kept his eyes fixed to the floor, his hands twisted into the cloth of his tunic. They had stuck him in Aesir clothing in an effort to appeal to his betrothed; the yards of foreign fabric only added to his discomfort. Loki doubted that a tunic would make the Aesir prince love him any more than he would otherwise but he knew better than to voice his opinions in the presence of his father. The fact was that Loki had no more say in his clothing than he did in any other aspect of his life and it was something he had long since resigned himself to.

When the herald formally announced him - “Prince Loki of Jotunheim, son of Laufey-King” - Loki stepped forward, clenching his jaw to still the tremor. He felt small standing on the floor before the dais where Odin Allfather looked down from on high. It was a familiar ache.

“Well met, Prince Loki,” Odin said, not without warmth. “May I introduce my son, Prince Thor.”

A large man with golden hair came forward, hands extended in greeting. His touch was so warm it was nearly painful. Loki forced his face into the semblance of a smile and Thor smiled back, and a cheer went up in the throne room.

The second time they met was at lunch the next day, a stilted affair where the two would-be lovers were left to eat together “alone,” but in actuality were being eavesdropped and spied on by a dozen or more minders. Loki barely heard a word Thor said over the rushing in his ears and at one point he startled badly when Thor reached over to lightly touch the back of his hand.

The third time they met, they got married.

***

The door of the bedroom - _their_ bedroom - swung shut with a tiny click that may as well have been a cannon blast for how it shook Loki. He was married. He was a bride? groom? consort? He belonged no longer to his father, but to Thor. And the ceremony was over and the bedroom door was closed and that meant…

Consummation.

Prince Thor - his _husband_ \- went to the wash basin and began loosening the straps on his ceremonial armor. Loki stood indecisively in the middle of the rug. Was he expected to help? Or would that be rude? Should he change his own garments? Strip bare? He knew he should ask but his voice had fled and the words were stuck in his throat.

Thor was busy racking his armor piece by piece and seemed to be paying him no mind whatsoever. Loki wasn't sure if that was a blessing or a curse. He _was_ sure how the evening would go once Thor did turn his attentions his way; he wasn't looking forward to it but he'd made his peace many moons ago.

Finally making a decision, Loki shrugged out of his finery and draped it carefully over the changing screen in the corner, then slipped naked under the covers in the middle of the bed. Best just to get it over with.

He propped his head up on a pillow and watched as Thor at last started removing the soft undergarments he'd been wearing to protect against chafing from the armor. Loki had to admit his broad back was very finely muscled, and his arms looked capable of ripping a tree trunk in two -- and his thighs, nearly as big around as Loki's waist, or perhaps even bigger -- Loki swallowed nervously. He was used to being smaller than everyone around him, but he had never had the threat of that much power inflicted specifically on his person before. He was planning on being docile, but if he struggled would Thor simply overpower him? He certainly _could_ , but would he…?

Thor finally turned to him, naked but for a breech cloth. Loki pulled the covers to his chin and lay there quietly, tracking Thor with his eyes as he came over to the bed and sat on the edge.

“Hello,” Thor said softly. “Husband.”

Loki could only blink. Thor reached one hand for his cheek and Loki flinched away instinctively. Carefully, he turned his face back towards Thor's hand and let his cheek rest against Thor’s palm.

“May I kiss you?” Thor asked.

Loki nodded almost imperceptibly. Thor's lips were very warm and dry, just as they had been at the wedding ceremony, and Loki stayed perfectly still as they explored his mouth.

“You can kiss me back if you like.”

“Oh,” Loki said weakly, the first sound he'd made all night. Half heartedly he made his lips move against Thor's. Thor gave a tiny hum of approval.

“I find you very beautiful,” Thor said. “Your skin looks like a glacier.”

“Yours looks like curdled milk,” Loki said without meaning to, then immediately clamped his lips shut, mortified. Thor only laughed.

“I suppose it does, at that.”

Thor let his hand glide down Loki's cheek to his neck and tugged gently on the covers.

“Can I see more of you?”

Loki closed his eyes and silently let go of his death grip on the blanket, allowing Thor to push it away. The air felt cool on his naked skin, a relief after the suffocating warmth, but now he felt dangerously exposed, a dog offering its belly.

Thor skimmed a hand down his chest. An involuntary shudder shook Loki and he turned his face away, eyes still closed.

“You're afraid of me,” Thor said, a statement, not a question. A tear leaked out of the corner of Loki's eye. “Loki. Look at me.”

Loki forced his eyes open and turned his head back to meet Thor's gaze. It was overwhelming. Every instinct told him to bolt. He curled his hands into fists in the sheets and tried to slow his breathing down.

“I won't do anything you don't want me to,” Thor said. Loki looked at his thick arms and his barrel of a chest and his lying Aesir mouth and didn't believe him.

“It's my duty to want to,” Loki said.

“Who told you that?”

“Everyone.”

“Everyone is wrong. What we do in our marital bed is your decision as much as mine.”

“I only want to please you,” Loki pleaded. “Tell me how to please you and I'll do it. Don't put the decision on me. I'll decide wrong and then you'll be unhappy and _please_ \--” He gasped a little at the end. He hadn't meant to babble like that. And now no doubt Thor was disgusted and would take his due and only Loki would be to blame. He closed his eyes again and waited for the inevitable backlash, for Thor's weight to crush him to the bed and...

He cracked an eye open. Thor hadn't moved and was looking down on him with sad eyes. He reached for Loki's face again but pulled his hand back before it could touch.

“Oh, sweetling,” Thor said. “I wish no one had put such notions in your head. I'm not the monster you think I am. I hope you'll see that soon. I won't touch you again unless you want me to.”

Loki pulled the covers back up and scrambled to the very edge of the mattress, as far away from Thor as he could get. Thor took the other edge. The bed was so large there were feet of space between them.

“Good night,” Thor said softly, staring at the ceiling.

“Good night,” Loki whispered. He lay there listening to Thor's breathing and waited until it finally evened out and Thor started twitching before he let sleep take him too.

***

When Loki awoke the next morning Thor was already up and being tended to by his body servant. He stood with arms outstretched while the man dressed him, then sat before the mirror to have his hair brushed and braided.

“Good morning,” Thor said once he noticed Loki was awake, cheerfully, as though Loki had not grievously insulted him last night. “I hope you slept well. When you're ready to get dressed just pull on that cord for an attendant. I have a small matter I must see to this morning but I’ll join you at lunch. Have the servants bring it to the gardens, they'll know which one.”

He didn't seem to expect Loki to speak, which was just as well because Loki had nothing to say. As soon as Thor left, Loki pulled on the cord and waited in his dressing gown. It was a lovely thing, all silk and handmade lace and delicate beading, and looked hideously expensive; it had been one of their wedding gifts. Loki had never worn anything so fine in his life. Prince he may be, but runt he was as well, and his father had always been loathe to provide him with luxuries lest he be considered weak. He felt slightly ridiculous wearing it and vaguely guilty but he couldn't deny the small thrill.

Back in Jotunheim only the king himself had been attended the way Thor was this morning, the Jotnar as a people placing a high value on self-sufficiency, so Loki wasn't quite sure what to expect when his own body servant showed up. The lad, Bjorn, seemed pleasant enough and though he stammered when Loki had to ask naively basic questions he never made fun; he simply showed Loki how and where to move.

Afterwards Loki fiddled with all the ties and clasps on his clothes. Bjorn had fastened them with swiftness born of familiarity but Loki couldn't make heads or tails of them -- which ones were structural, which ones were ornamental -- he wondered how he was to relieve himself later and if he'd need to call Bjorn back to help him piss. He made a face at himself in the mirror. It looked strange, framed as it was by Aesir clothing and an Aesir hairstyle.

Thor joined him for lunch and they ate in an uncomfortable silence punctuated by the scrape of silverware and the sound of chewing. Every so often Thor would venture a question and Loki would provide a one or two word answer. The tension was so thick that Loki all but squirmed in his seat, only his years of etiquette training saving him the embarrassment. Even the servants looked uncomfortable, or maybe he was only imagining it. 

Would he be expected to dine with Thor like this every day? Making small talk with a husband he didn’t know? Or rather, failing to make small talk as apparently they couldn’t successfully accomplish even that most basic of social niceties?

That evening Thor got undressed by the wash basin again, seemingly uncaring of his nudity. Loki hid behind the changing screen and shucked his clothing off furtively, pulling his sleep tunic over his head as quickly as possible. Thor had been unexpectedly kind last night but Loki wondered how much of it was true and how much was just a ruse to lower his defenses. Loki could not imagine actually requesting that Thor touch him and surely Thor could not actually mean to wait to consummate their marriage indefinitely. He wondered how many more nights he could put Thor off until he finally grew impatient and simply took him whether Loki was willing or not.

Their days passed in much the same way for several weeks -- awkward meals, lying together in silence in their giant bed. The Jotnar contingent left after the first week and then Loki was truly alone. Thor kept his word, but every night Loki wondered if this would be the night he didn’t, and as the days passed and his doom seemed more and more inevitable he began to shrink in on himself further and further.

He didn’t even know why he was so scared. The Aesir of the stories were terrible and terrifying, but everyone that Loki had met so far was polite if not welcoming. Maybe that was part of it actually -- that his mind could not reconcile what he thought he knew of Aesir with the reality of the Asgardian court and so everything felt wrong, like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. He had been so sure that he would be trading one outcast status for another that he had a very hard time trusting anyone’s sincerity; every day was an agony, just waiting for the sword over his head to finally fall.

The lady Frigga tried her best to integrate him into court life and he supposed he was grateful. It was better than sitting in his rooms all day and she seemed almost...motherly, or at least what he imagined a mother would be like. Loki himself had never known a mother, his own dam having died giving birth to him.

“Thor speaks very highly of you,” she said to him one day as they walked arm in arm taking a turn around the palace. The sunlight shone warmly on them and radiated back from the stones of the walkway so that Loki could feel it through his sandals.

“Does he?” said Loki, surprised.

“He often says that had he come to live with you in Jotunheim instead that he would not have adjusted half so quickly or graciously and that he greatly admires your courage in coming here.”

Loki flushed violet. Courage was not what he would call it.

“Well, we all have our duties,” he said.

“He also speaks of your kindness. He has not missed how considerate you are with the servants.”

“Mere politeness, I’m afraid.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, my darling,” she said, patting his arm. She leaned in conspiratorially and added, “He also speaks of your overwhelming beauty.”

Loki flushed again and felt his stomach squirm. He already knew that Thor found him beautiful and the thought was not exactly comforting.

“He is...not unpleasant to look upon himself,” Loki said. Frigga laughed and Loki breathed a sigh of relief that she had not taken offense at his light jest. “Tell him that his compliments are much appreciated.”

“You can tell him yourself,” Frigga said, nodding with her chin towards where Thor was approaching them down the walkway. Loki felt a dull sort of desperation seize him. He’d been having a such a nice time today.

“Hello, mother, Loki,” Thor said warmly. Loki clutched Frigga’s arm a little more tightly, silently hoping that Thor would not offer his own elbow. He didn’t. Still keeping his word, then. “The day is lovely, is it not?”

“I promised the lady Sif I would watch her spar today. I fear I must take my leave,” Loki said, words rushing out. Stupid. It was obvious he was avoiding Thor.

“That is most fortuitous!” Thor exclaimed. “I was on the way to the training grounds myself! We can walk together.”

Loki cursed himself for seven kinds of idiot as they said their farewells to Frigga. Thor walked with his hands clasped behind his back, Loki with his clasped in front, their feet crunching as the pathway turned from paving stone to gravel.

“It is nice to see you out in the open air,” Thor said. “I confess in my mind’s eye I picture you only in our chambers as it is the place I see you most. It makes me happy to see you out and becoming a part of our life here.”

Loki made a noncommittal noise.

“I would that we did more together,” Thor said. “Get to know one another. We have so very many years ahead of us and we should not spend them as strangers.”

“It is...hard,” Loki said.

“I know,” Thor agreed. “Will you watch me spar today as well? It would please me greatly.”

“Then I shall.”

They did start spending more time together after that, Thor showing him the libraries and the stables, the manicured formal gardens and the slightly wilder hunting park, the bustling marketplace, the docks. As they looked out over the water the Bifrost sparkled in the distance and Loki felt a small pang of homesickness. But it was very small. Though he hated to admit it, his life here was better than it had ever been back home.

He slowly opened up to Thor’s questions and to his great and seemingly everlasting surprise with anything having to do with his husband, Thor listened. Loki mentioned missing a particular dish from home and two days later it appeared on his table. “I like this music,” he said one night when they were dining in the great hall, and Thor arranged a private concert. He complained of the Aesir clothing and all its buckles and hasps and Thor sent him a tailor with instructions to fit Loki with clothing designed to his own specifications.

“Why are you doing all this?” Loki asked him one day over breakfast, sipping a tea that Thor had gotten imported for him from Alfheim.

“All what?” Thor asked.

“This,” Loki said, gesturing at the tea and his clothes. “Being so...nice to me.”

“Why wouldn’t I be nice to you?”

“But you don’t seem to want anything in return from me.”

“I care for you,” Thor said, as if that explained it.

“You are a very strange man,” Loki said. “I don’t understand you at all.”

Thor laughed. “Sometimes I feel like the feeling is mutual.”

As the weeks turned to months, Loki stopped shrinking in on himself. Thor’s relentless sunshine started to warm the tiny bud furled tightly closed inside his heart, coaxing it open petal by petal. He started returning Thor’s smiles, his jests. The sword he’d felt hanging over his head for so long pulled further and further away.

One morning, after Thor’s body servant had finished dressing him and was about to begin brushing his hair, a strange impulse took hold of Loki. He touched the man lightly on the shoulder and reached for the brush.

“...can I?” he said.

The man handed him the brush silently and at Loki’s nod he disappeared into the woodwork with a bow.

Loki approached the back of Thor’s head. His eyes briefly met Thor’s in the mirror. Hesitantly, he lifted the brush to Thor’s golden hair and felt Thor inhale. It was the first time Loki had ever touched him of his own volition. Should it feel momentous? It did and it didn’t. Loki could appreciate the symbolism but he felt no different now than he had a moment before. He still felt like himself. Just a slightly different version of himself than the one who had come to Asgard all those months ago. One who thought that touching his husband might not actually be the worst thing he could imagine.

Loki worked slowly, brushing the sleep-tangles from Thor’s hair gently from the bottom up, making his way around Thor’s head. He felt Thor’s eyes follow him in the mirror but he did not dare to meet them again. Thor’s hair was coarser than his own but not by much. The color reminded him of the pictures he had seen of ripe wheat. He let it run through his fingers, soft and sweet smelling.

The detangling accomplished, Loki set the brush gently down, but for some reason he felt hesitant to give up the touch. He felt a tenuous thread had begun to grow between them and nurturing it like this seemed...right. He kept running his hands through Thor’s hair and then worked his fingers in to gently knead at Thor’s scalp. Thor closed his eyes and leaned into the touch and for once Loki didn’t recoil. 

He pulled some of the strands at Thor’s temples back and braided them out of his face, fastening them neatly with leather thongs, then ran his hands over the hair that fell down Thor’s back one more time. He stepped away.

“There,” he whispered. “All done.”

He finally dared to look back up into the mirror and Thor’s eyes held him there, so blue, his expression so tender it pierced Loki’s heart.

“Thank you,” Thor said.

***

It became their morning ritual, Loki brushing and braiding Thor’s hair, and soon they had dismissed the body servant entirely and Loki himself helped Thor to dress as well. He had learned much of Asgardian fashion and the clothing no longer confused him as it once did. Smoothing the fabric over Thor’s broad back, buckling all the clasps at his waist, draping his cloak over his shoulders, all became second nature. He even grew to look forward to it -- standing so near to Thor that he could feel the warmth radiating from him, feel Thor’s breath as it brushed past his cheek. He began to let his touches linger. Thor didn’t seem to mind.

One morning after Loki had finished braiding Thor’s hair he pushed the lovely mass of it to the side and dropped a light kiss on his neck. Thor shivered and put his hand over Loki’s where it rested on his shoulder. Loki kissed that too.

***

Laufey-King and his court visited Asgard again half a year after Loki and Thor’s marriage. A great tourney was being held and contingents from all the Nine Realms gathered here in the capitol to compete and feast and drink and to cement alliances old and new. They were received in the throne room by Odin and Frigga, Thor and Loki at their heels. Laufey’s lip curled when he saw Loki. Loki expected his stomach to drop the way it always used to, but instead he felt anger.

Loki stuck by Thor’s side for most of the reception but Laufey managed to corner him late in the evening.

“There’s the runt,” he said, coming up beside Loki on the balcony. “Managed to whelp yet, boy?”

Loki clenched his jaw. Once he would have cowered and apologized, once in a different life where he was a weakling with no power and no voice, never allowed to exercise his own agency. He was not that person anymore, he realized. And it was Thor who had showed him that.

“I won’t stand your insults any longer,” Loki said, meeting his father’s eyes directly for the first time in centuries. “I may be your child but I don’t belong to you. I don’t belong to anyone.”

Laufey barked out a laugh. “The stripling has grown some fangs!” he said. “See that your husband doesn’t find out or he might have to punish you.”

Loki felt himself flush. “Thor would never --” he started.

“A master may be kind to a pet. But never forget who holds the leash.” Laufey pushed off from the balcony and left Loki trembling with rage in the darkness.

He was still standing there when Thor found him a quarter hour later.

“Are you alright, my love?” Thor asked, concerned, and without thinking Loki turned and buried his face in Thor’s chest. He felt Thor’s arms go around him.

“I’m not your pet, am I?” Loki said in a small voice.

“What? Of course not -- what?” Thor pulled back to look him in the face.

“My father,” Loki said, his face twisting. He’d told Thor about his father in dribs and drabs over the months and Thor seemed to understand at once.

“Whatever he said, it’s wrong,” Thor said resolutely. “You’re not my...pet. How could you even think…?”

“I don’t. I don’t. Only it’s good to hear you say it.”

Thor pulled him into a closer embrace and Loki let himself melt against Thor’s chest. It felt nice. It felt safe.

“Thank you,” Loki said. “Thank you for...everything. For being you.”

“How could I be otherwise?” Thor smiled.

The tourney kicked off the next day with a melee. Thor was on the lists. Loki watched with his heart in his mouth and butterflies in his belly as Thor fought his way through every competitor on the field, his red cape streaming behind him and his armor flashing brightly, the fury of the storm made incarnate. When he felled the last fighter he raised his hammer aloft and spun in a circle, basking in the roar and adulation of the crowd, and when his eyes finally met Loki’s his face lit in a smile to rival the sun. Loki felt himself smiling helplessly back. Thor threw him a kiss and Loki felt it light in his chest and swell within him with a feeling that he didn’t quite know the name of.

That evening when the music started after dinner, Loki cast a disdainful look towards his father’s seat and pulled Thor from his chair. “Will you dance with me?” he asked. The feeling had stayed in his chest the whole day, growing rather than diminishing, and he thought maybe...

Loki had been learning the court dances from one of Frigga’s ladies. He only stumbled twice and Thor’s great arms were there to save him both times. Laughter bubbled from his throat as they spun and clapped, linked arms, floated away from each other and back again in intricate circles. His breath caught when Thor pulled him flush as the last chord hung in the air and suddenly the feeling he’d been chasing had a name.

Love.

***

They dressed for bed the way they always did and climbed in, each on their own side. Loki felt a bit wobbly. He took a deep breath to fortify himself.

“May I kiss you?” he whispered to the ceiling.

Thor turned on his side towards Loki and smiled. “Yes.”

Loki scooted closer and laid on his own side. Their noses were almost touching. “You can kiss me back if you like,” Loki murmured, one side of his mouth lifting in a half smile.

Thor huffed a small laugh and captured Loki’s lips with his own. They were as warm as Loki remembered but this time they woke something deep in his belly. A small sound escaped him and Thor groaned and pulled him closer.

“Thor,” Loki sighed, burying his hands in Thor’s hair.

It was a very long time later that they fell asleep twined together, boneless and sated with sweat cooling on their brows.

***

The years passed and their family grew, first by one, then two and three. Thor took to fatherhood like a fish to water. When the time came, he took to kingship less easily but just as competently. Loki carved a place for himself in the court and held sway over the tangled mess of intrigue and politics with a firm hand and, as time went on, an increasingly biting wit. King Thor the Mighty they called him, and Prince Loki the Fair.

King Thor, in defiance of thousands of years of tradition, eschewed a personal body servant. The people thought it an odd quirk. As he brushed out Thor’s tangled hair every morning, Loki thought it terribly sentimental; he wouldn't have it any other way though.


End file.
